


Christmas Presents

by Marmosette



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Presents, M/M, wrapping Christmas presents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 09:36:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmosette/pseuds/Marmosette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas Eve, and the secretive Mycroft Holmes is wrapping his Christmas presents. Greg's going to be late getting home, because there was a murder, and then another body, and...he doesn't want to talk about it. Let's just look at the shiny presents, shall we?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Presents

His phone buzzed. Mycroft glanced at the screen, set down the paper, and picked up the phone with his free hand. “Good evening, Gregory. How’s the Thames?”

“Wet,” came the flat response. “Listen, I should be done here in the next ten minutes. At least that’s what I’m hoping. There’s going to be a bit of paperwork though, tonight. Did you get the veg?”

“It’s all taken care of,” Mycroft told him, switching to clamp the phone between his ear and shoulder. “Will you be staying at the office, then?”

“Nah. I’m going to try to get it done at home. I’m really sorry, I know you had plans, but at least I’ll be there, yeah?”

“It’s fine, Gregory.”

“You keep saying that. But I don’t want to reach a point where I don’t feel bad when our lives get disrupted.”

“You have an admirable tolerance for pain, Detective Inspector,” Mycroft said, smiling. “You know I understand.”

“And I still appreciate that,” Greg answered, and Mycroft could hear voices in the background, the way Greg’s voice changed. He was looking up, away, being called back to the body. “Look, I’ll try to be back as soon as I can - is Patrick still on call?”

“Certainly. Would you like him there or at the Yard?”

“I’ll get a lift back to the Yard, but if you could have him meet me there, that’d save a hell of a lot of wear and tear trying to find a taxi on Christmas eve.”

“Shall be done,” Mycroft said lightly. “Half an hour at most.”

“Ta. See you soon.”

Mycroft disconnected, then hit the speed dial for the car service. “Patrick. Scotland Yard. There may be a bit of a wait.”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. Anything special?”

“No, no. Just back to the flat. Bayswater.”

“Very good.”

Mycroft snapped the phone shut and dropped it back onto the table. All he had been able to do while on the phone was write out the cards. It was a small enough tradition to maintain, but every year that it was possible, Mycroft would save a few gifts to wrap by himself on Christmas Eve. It was never more than a handful. Most of his gifts were deliveries he arranged, or special projects best handled by professionals - hampers, baskets, flowers, and so on. The whole process of gift-giving had been streamlined for most people with the introduction of the internet, but Mycroft had had to outsource and delegate so many details for so long that online shopping hadn’t really made much difference to him. 

Which was why he made such a point of taking stock of who he would be around on Christmas day, and making sure that whoever it was, he had something to give them. It might be a trade delegation, or an ambassador, or a chief of staff, or Anthea, or simply the front desk at a hotel. But this small, portable tradition was often all he had to mark the occasion. And it was so much more pleasant and relaxing than the Christmases where both he and Sherlock would be visiting Mummy, although even then, he made sure that he had something for Sherlock and something for her, as well as the household staff. He had learned much about geometry, arranging to get a flat piece of paper to disguise the shape of a fossil well enough to fool Sherlock, at least from across the room.

Now, of course, the gifts he had to wrap were much more regular shapes. Doctor John Watson’s was a bit of a cheat, in that respect. But a jeweler’s gift box made the flashdrive just a bit more of an occasion, and it was the software it contained that mattered most, which was completely intangible. He had originally thought of the dictation software because of John’s medical career, but it would also help him in maintaining that ridiculous blog that Sherlock affected to find so annoying. He hadn’t realised that there were still people in the world whose familiarity with a keyboard was so cursory that they wouldn’t even notice the difference between a qwerty and a Dvorak layout, but that was just one of the many ways in which John Watson had managed to surprise him.

For Sherlock, it was the usual puzzle. The cryptologist at MI6 had been quite helpful, combining an ancient locking mechanism with an elegant new algorithm to control the electromagnetic seal. The compound inside would take Sherlock at least a week to analyze, and probably warrant an angry text when he realised the pun. Still, it was Christmas. 

His phone buzzed again. Greg. He frowned, flipping it open. “Problems?”

“Another body.” He could hear the desperate exasperation in Greg’s tone. “Except this one’s a cat! Who kills a cat on Christmas eve?”

“If I knew that, you wouldn’t be there,” Mycroft said, trying not to laugh. “Does this really warrant your continued presence?”

“Only because the cat’s paw was found... look, I really don’t even want to tell you about this one, okay? Not tonight. I’ve already sent some of the lads home so I really should stay and help out a bit longer. Tell Patrick he can head home or wherever it is he goes, and I’ll cadge a lift from Donovan.”

“It’s fine. Patrick’s already on his way.”

“But it’s Christmas Eve -”

“Which is why he is so well compensated. It’s fine, Greg. And anyway, Donovan doesn’t have clearance.”

“She can just drop me at the end of the street.”

“No, Greg,” Mycroft insisted, pleating the paper on one end of the cylinder for Sherlock’s gift. “Just finish up at the scene and let me take care of the rest.”

“Fine. Look, I’m really, _really_ sorry.”

“No need. Leave that part to the murderer.”

“Yeah. See you in a bit.”

Mycroft set the phone down again, putting the card next to Sherlock’s gift. He glanced around the room. The tree was decorated, shimmering already in the soft light of the table lamps. Garland crowned the bookshelves along one wall, and he had put fresh candles in the floor-standing candle-holders. He walked back through the flat, making the usual final checks. The kitchen was tidy, and he’d fussed over the contents of the refrigerator enough to know that there was nothing more to be done there. Nothing to be done in his study or Lestrade’s, which left the bedroom.

He switched on the lamp by the side of the bed and closed the curtains. The sheer, golden privacy drapes would add a touch of warmth to the miserable grey light of a London morning in winter, should either of them wish to open their eyes before noon. Greg wouldn’t want to, but Mycroft took a great deal of pleasure in watching the tanned chest rise and fall, the slight movements of the grizzled hair on his arms as his pores relaxed and contracted in response to the temperature changes of the room. He had lost hours to the study of the dark lashes against his cheeks, wondering what sort of dreams might be dictating his eye movements, the change of his pulse. There was very little about self-control that Mycroft Holmes had not perfected in the dark hours of the last few years.

Satisfied with the room, he knelt beside the bed and reached underneath. It felt a little sad, knowing Greg would never even attempt to find anything Mycroft chose to hide in the flat. Nevertheless, growing up with Sherlock had left some habits too ingrained to die, and so Mycroft automatically hid any presents for anyone who might actually enter the flat where they were concealed. More often, he wouldn’t even purchase them until the actual last minute. He had never understood the stress many felt about the holidays - it had never been difficult for him to choose gifts, and with that decision made, the rest was even more simple. The gift dictated where it would be purchased. And while he might never have seen it that way, the kind of shops where Mycroft Holmes would purchase a gift were never the kind of shops that would be overrun with harried, hassled mothers, frustrated fathers, panicked lovers, or any of the other imbeciles he associated with the phrase “last-minute shoppers.” 

He released the wires that held the lightweight box against the underside of the bed frame, and set it on the bed while he got to his feet. After a slight hesitation, he lifted the lid and checked the contents, making sure there had been no shifting, no interference of any kind. Of course there hadn’t. He smiled, and resealed the box.

It wasn’t the smallest of the gifts he had wrapped, but there was just enough of the rich, metallic purple paper left to shroud the box. It was simple enough, folding the paper into crisp creases, hiding the edges, tucking things into place. A kind of improvisational origami. It had always struck him as cheating to use tape to hold the paper in place; surely anyone should be able to outwit two-dimensional inanimate objects. A ribbon would suffice for anything truly complex, but simple parallelograms based on ninety-degree angles were no kind of challenge at all.

Satisfied with his work, he took all the gifts and cards over to the tree and arranged them at the bottom. The deep, rich blue velvet of the embroidered tree skirt hid the stand, and highlighted the metallic paper  of the gifts. He smiled at the idea of how Greg would respond - admiration, teasing, followed by adding his own wrapped gifts, which would have nothing to do with Mycroft’s organization. Followed by more teasing. It probably wouldn’t stop if he pointed out that without Greg’s haphazard, mad, joyful approach to it, no Christmas would ever look anything but sterile to Mycroft again. And in any case, Greg probably already knew, but had no intention of giving up his teasing.

Mycroft had two glasses of wine ready and had only just sat down on the sofa before he heard Greg’s voice at the door, a key in the lock. Patrick’s, he realised, hearing the distinctive rattle of the handle, the scrape the key made as it was withdrawn. “Merry Christmas, and thanks again,” Mycroft heard Greg say, and leaned his head back, looking along his arm, back toward the entrance hall as the door thunked shut.

“Earlier than you’d thought,” Mycroft called.

“Yeah. Do you know anything about Donovan’s boyfriend being given two bottles of _very_ nice port at his office Christmas do?” Greg asked, calling ahead as he paused to hang up his coat.

“Ahh, so Donovan volunteered to stay late rather than deal with his snoring,” Mycroft answered, grinning.

“Yeah,” Greg said, emerging around the corner. “You have anything to do with that?”

“No, but if it was intentional on anyone’s part, I shall be sending thank-you cards and arranging extra bonuses.

Greg smiled grudgingly, and finally nodded at the tree. “You’ve been busy.”

“Mm.” Mycroft held the second glass of wine out to him.

“Cheers.” Greg slid onto the sofa next to him, slouching into the curve of Mycroft’s outstretched arm. “Looks good.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft said, surprised. “Should I be worried?”

Greg craned his neck to look at him, then took another swallow from his glass. “Can’t I be nice without causing suspicion?”

“Certainly. But you never are.”

Greg blew a raspberry, and Mycroft laughed, dropping his arm around Greg’s shoulders. “Look, it’s Christmas Eve, I just got home, I’m tired, and I’m still feeling like my life is a fairy tale. I’m having a moment, all right?”

Mycroft kissed the top of his head. “Just as you please. I’ll still be here when you’re done.”


End file.
